The following comes from Ninja Gaiden 3's director Fumihiko Yasuda...

"We really wanted to flesh out the story this time around, so we wanted people to enjoy that story and get used to the game as it is. In the past the games were really hardcore and we couldn't get players to stay with us and complete the game.

When he (Ryu) has that mask on, he's a ninja. When you take that mask off, he's not a ninja anymore. He's a human like all of us. To leave that aspect out doesn't make sense. We wanted to show that human under the mask. Who is this guy, why he does things.

He's a ninja. We're not going to hide that, and we have maintained that kind of cool style to the game. We don't want to take that away from Ninja Gaiden, because that is one of the defining factors of what the series is."

Mr. Yasuda also discussed the 'Hero' mode, which makes the game quite a bit easier. He wants people to keep in mind that this is just one mode in the game.

"At the same time we've got the super hard difficulty mode. We're keeping the hardcore aspect of the game anyway, we're just trying to get the players who have never had a go at Ninja Gaiden to come check it out."

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